Virgin America passengers get a new social network

Updated 1:47 pm, Friday, February 14, 2014

San Francisco- 02-14) 13:44 PST -- Virgin America now wants its business travelers to get lucky - so to speak.

Starting next week, the Burlingame airline - which is also reportedly planning to go public - will offer passengers a dedicated LinkedIn social network to encourage professionals to connect 35,000 feet in the air.

The app will also show participating LinkedIn members on other Virgin flights in the air at the same time, along with those who are at the departing or destination airports. The network is formed by the airline's Wi-Fi provider, Gogo.

The opt-in social network comes from an airline that already has seat-to-seat texting and in-flight flirting to "get lucky."

The idea for a "network on the fly" came from frequent fliers surveyed by the airline last year in San Francisco, New York and Dallas, said spokeswoman Abby Lunardini.

"We were actually a bit surprised by it," Lunardini said. "But obviously we know they are interested in connectivity. That's a big reason why they fly us, because we have fleet-wide Wi-Fi and power outlets."

To join the flying social network, passengers must first download an iOS business networking app called Here on Biz, which was developed by a Los Angeles company whose CEO is a Virgin frequent flier.

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Then passengers must register their LinkedIn professional social networking account with the app. Each flight will have a unique network identity.

Once on board, they can see who else is using the app and LinkedIn so they can send text messages. They can also limit their visibility using privacy settings. Or they can just don their noise-canceling headphones and shut out the world.

The service will roll out on one flight originating in San Francisco next week and spread to all Virgin America flights by the end of the month, Lunardini said.

The airline has long sought to get passengers to fly more united.

When it began flying in 2007, Virgin included a seat-to-seat texting feature, meaning a passenger on one side of the plane could initiate a chat with someone on the other side or in another section using their seat-back video screens.

In March, the airline went a step further with a "flirting" feature, which lets passengers send cocktails, meals or snacks to someone else on board.

Richard Branson, who founded the Virgin empire, laid out the service's intent with a cheeky YouTube video titled "Guide to Getting Lucky."

"People really love it," Lunardini said. "It is, not surprisingly, most popular on our Vegas flights, but also on some of our longer-haul flights from San Francisco to New York."

Lunardini, however, would not comment on a report in the Financial Times that the airline is preparing to do an initial public offering. The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the situation," said the airline has picked Barclays and Deutsche Bank to lead the IPO.

Virgin is not the only airline using social networking to connect passengers. Dutch carrier KLM offers a "meet and seat" system for passengers to share details about themselves on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ so they can find seatmates who share interests.